The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a big, grand, magnificent celebration that happens every year on Thanksgiving day. Known for its iconic huge balloons the parade has been around for over 100 years, but how did such an iconic tradition even start in the first place?
In 1924, a Macy’s store that was located on Herald Square in New York City had just been announced to be the largest store in the world after having a huge expansion done. To celebrate the department store’s big accomplishment, Macy’s employees had the idea to throw a big parade on the streets of New York for the store’s new grand opening.
The parade was actually advertised as the “Macy’s Christmas Parade,” despite the celebration falling on the morning of Thanksgiving. The parade had different floats that represented children’s nursery-rhymes, while Macy’s employees dressed up as knights, cowboys, clowns, and also animals such as elephants, monkeys, bears, and camels, loaned by the Central Park Zoo.
Despite the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade being known for its giant character balloons, it wasn’t until three years later when the first ever character balloon was introduced, causing a tradition of countless others balloons to be the parades for years to come. The first giant balloon to walk in the parade was actually Felix the Cat, in 1927. Felix the Cat was very popular and was the world’s first cartoon superstar, however this would quickly change the following year when the animated short film “Steamboat Willie” would come out and feature one of the world’s most recognizable cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse.
Despite how beautiful the show happens to be every year, there have been some slip ups and mistakes in the past that were caused by the balloons. For example in 1997 two major incidents happened with two different balloons. While preparing the Barney balloon to take off into the air there were some difficulties with the balloon that was ahead of it, so the two balloons swapped places and Barney was the one that was ahead. But as the Barney balloon made its way down Times Square the wind was out of control, causing the balloon to struggle by not staying still. The handlers underneath the giant balloon had fallen and let go of the ropes that were connecting them to the balloon. It was too late and the damage was already done, the gust of wind shoved the balloon into a lamppost causing the balloon to tear open and deflate.
The same year a Cat in the Hat balloon would also cause the same amount (if not worse damage) to not only the parade, but to people’s actual health. A lot like the Barney balloon, the Cat in the Hat one had crashed into a lampost as well, causing the balloon to lose its arm. But the balloon not only casually bumped into the post, it actually broke it, causing the top of the post to come crashing down onto a crowd of innocent civilians. Four people ended up becoming injured, one woman suffered a skull fracture and ended up in a month-long coma. Incidents like these caused the parade to put more safety precautions into place with balloons of that size and things like weather conditions.
In short, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a popular, fun tradition that brings joy and excitement to people of all ages, and it also kicks off the holiday season every year. Overall the parade should be a day for everyone to celebrate Thanksgiving and spend time with their loved ones.